K. M. TanakaJapan Society for the Promotion of Science Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Osaka University Japan

Kathryn Tanaka is a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Postdoctoral Research Fellow, based at Osaka Univeristy, Department of Japanese Literature. Her research has focused on intersections of medicine and literature, in particular the writings produced by Hansen's Disease patients in Japan's public hospital system. Dr. Tanaka is presently preparing her book entitled Through the Hospital Gates: Hansen's Disease and Modern Japanese Literature University of Chicago Press, 2014). Her related and most recent publications in this area of research have been published in the Japanese language: “Nihon, ōbei taishū bungaku ni okeru Hansen-byō to yūseigaku.” (Hansen’s Disease and Eugenics in Japanese, American and British Popular Literature) In: Nōmaruzēshon, volume 31, 2 (355): February, 2011, pp. 16-18, and, “Senzen Nihon no Hansen-byō ryōyōjo ni okeru bungaku no kōryū: Kyūshū Ryōyōjo wo chūshin ni.” (The Exchange of Literature in Prewar Japanese Hansen’s Disease Hospitals: Focusing on the Kyushu Hospital) In: Kikuchino, No. 695 (August 2013).

Dr. Tanaka is also currently working on a comparative study of representations of Hansen's Disease and eugenic ideas in popular fiction in Britain, the United States, and Japan.